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Malmö's largest real estate company invests in Plurio LED to reduce energy consumption by up to 70%

MKB is Malmö's largest real estate company with 22,539 apartments and 1,100 commercial premises across Sweden. Care for the environment is an integral part of its management programme and great efforts are being made to reduce overall consumption of electricity, heat and water - without any impact on resident comfort. Migration from mercury opal sphere to Plurio LED

In light of the EU's Ecodesign Directive, mercury light sources will be phased out after 2015. MKB has therefore chosen to replace its existing installation of 80W mercury lamps with post top Plurio LED(40W) lanterns including Bi power dimming. The Plurio LED fittings are supplied complete with 4-meter cable, which facilitates the exchange of already existing poles.

Up to 70% energy savings

The installation saves approximately €6250, 16kWh and the equivalent of 650kg of CO2 per year. Combined with the Bi power night time dimming switch, which reduces energy consumption by 50% for eight hours, total energy savings are as much as 70%. The savings are considerable but not taken in isolation from other benefits. The quality of light is now much better with crisp, clean white light and good colour rendering too.

Just a 4-year payback period

The through life cost also offers a marked improvement, given that the mercury lamps required regular maintenance and lamp replacement. Looking at the installation cost, capital purchase price and maintenance required, we can clearly see the benefits of replacing these lanterns with a payback of just over 4 years (Figure 1).*

Increased resident security

Plurio LED is available with both symmetrical and asymmetrical light distribution. The asymmetric variant offers the opportunity to reduce glare when close to buildings. MKB however has chosen the symmetric variant with an even distribution of light, illuminating both walkways and adjacent surfaces to help increase security.

The residents in the area are now enjoying the new lighting. Michael Siecke, Purchaser at MKB, and caretaker Tord Brink are pleased with both the fittings and expected energy savings. With the LED's increased lifetime, they also look forward to reduced operating and maintenance costs.

*This case study assumes some form of maintenance is carried out and that components fail at industry average times. Each visit to a lantern needs two people and also requires a vehicle to access the lanterns. Plurio lanterns are installed at a unit cost of about €500 per lantern and are assumed to be replaced at the same cost when the lanterns reach 70% lumen output. In reality the cost of LED lanterns will have reduced by the time these lanterns need replacing, so the through life costs are likely to be more favourable to Plurio than shown.